Daughters of Love
by FrostFlamer
Summary: Piper wants to talk to Nico. She's not totally sure about what, but she wants to talk to Nico. Nico is missing his dead sisters, both his blood-sister and adopted one.


**My first venture into the PJO fandom. Hope you enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: I am not Rick Riordan. Therefore I do not own PJO.**

* * *

It's just after they've recovered Percy and Chase from Tartarus. The couple is making out like their life depends on it. Nico is sitting in a corner, reading one of Frank's books—The Art of War is surprisingly good.

There's a sudden tap on his shoulder, and he whirls around, quick as a snake, tackling the offender to the floor. It's only McLean, though, and he mutters a quick apology that she can just barely hear.

"Hey, Nico? Can I… talk to you?"

He stops to consider. The daughter of Aphrodite isn't totally intolerable like most of the rest of her cabin, and something about those soft multicolored eyes reminds him of another daughter of Love who had been kind and tolerable.

Unbidden, memories surface.

~FROST~

_"She's dead!"he cries to himself over and over, rocking back and forth in the Hades cabin, alone and scared and mad, and all alone because his sister is dead and she's not coming back, and, oh gods, it hurts, like someone ripped out his heart and set it on fire and then dumped it into the Mariana Trench._

_Then there's a soft, lilting voice, and brown eyes full of compassion—but no pity—are staring down at him as a long, slender-fingered hand rubs his back soothingly. It seems like something his sister would do, and he lets out a quiet, heart-wrenching sob._

_"She's dead." He repeats to himself, and the eyes look at him sympathetically._

_The owner of those eyes sits down on the mattress, right next to him. She's silent for a long while, just rubbing his back comfortingly, soothingly, until finally, she begins to speak._

_"Did you know," she begins. "that once upon a time, I wasn't the leader of Cabin 10? Once, there was a guy named Matthew. He was the head before I was, and we all looked up to him like he was our big brother."_

_Nico stiffens. Already, he can tell this is a story without a happy ending._

_"He wasn't one of the campers who stayed year-round—he was only here for the summer, and sometimes, the winter. When he wasn't here, I would stand in for him."_

_"How old was he?" Nico asks._

_Silena smiles. "He was two years older than me. One day, I got an Iris Message from him while he was staying with his aunt and uncle. He had found a demigod, and there was no satyr guarding her. His theory was that she was the daughter of one of the minor gods, and the smell of her comrades had masked them from monsters."_

_"Comrades?"_

_"Well, technically, Matthew found three. I believe you know the other two as the Stolls?"_

_"The twins?"_

_"Brothers, actually." A light grin dances on her face, quickly disappearing. "They were filthy ragamuffins, scrounging from where they could. Los Angeles area. They had a reputation for thieving."_

_"Who was the girl?" Nico asks, curious._

_Silena shifts, pulling herself closer to him, gripping his hand like Bianca did when they left the Lotus Hotel. A short but painful shot of anguish shoots through him at the thought. "Drew. Drew Tanaka."_

_"You mean the charmspeaker?"_

_"That's the one. Matthew found her, and she led him back to the Stolls after he IMed me. And then they started trying to make it back here. Matthew kind of wasn't Zeus' favorite guy back then, so they couldn't fly."_

_"They made it back mostly fine, but then when they were almost at the camp's borders, they were attacked by a group of empousai. Matthew sent the others ahead, and then fought them himself. By the time he ended up dragging himself to camp, Drew was in hysterics, the Stolls had been claimed, and he was slowly losing consciousness from blood loss and inability to properly breathe."_

_Nico squeezes his eyes shut. This is it. This is where Matthew is going to die._

_"The medics from Apollo's cabin worked for three days straight trying to cure him. But the empousai had done something to his blood that made nectar and ambrosia like poison for him. Lee Fletcher, the only one who was blessed with healing, tried his best to heal the big wounds, but Lee was still new and had no idea how to do it. I think Matthew's always been his greatest failure. Matthew died begging for death."_

_"For death." Replies Nico flatly._

_"For death and for safety and for escape from the pain. At that point, for him, they were all the same, I believe. Suicide by poison. Painless. Quick. His funeral was the way he would have wanted it—soft and quiet and like him. Drew was claimed then."_

_Nico looks at her curiously. "Why are you telling me this?"_

_Silena stares up at the ceiling, finally replying, "Matthew was everything to Drew. She prayed, you know. To Apollo and to Aphrodite and Athena and Hera and Hades and everyone she could think of. She was desperate. The gods never answered her call, and then when her mother finally claimed her, it was at Matthew's funeral. I don't think she's ever really forgiven them for that." She turns towards Nico. "You've seen Drew. She's bitter, and blames the gods for his death. I don't want you to end up like that."_

_Nico stares, face twisting into anger. "But I won't blame the gods. Percy promised. And she died."_

_"I promised Drew that Matthew would make it alive. She clung to my words like a lifeline, and then ended up sinking when it turned out it was just a rock. Don't blame Percy, Nico. I think, if he had a chance, he would give himself up for her to live again."_

_Nico pauses, looking at her. "You know, I want to."_

_Silena nods. "I know. Drew tried to hate me. For a long time, she succeeded in pretending. But she ended up just turning bitter towards everyone but me."_

_"I just can't." Nico says, frustrated. "I'm angry at him, and I hate that he let my sister just… die. But I can't hate him."_

_"I know." She says again. "Because no matter how hard you try to stop yourself, there's always that one person you can't stop wondering, thinking, wishing about."_

_His head snaps up so fast he gets whiplash. "What? You… know? And you don't think I'm a freak?"_

_She laughs drily. "Nico, if I was going to judge you on anything, it would be your parent, not your sexual preferences."_

_"Gee, thanks. That makes me feel a whole lot better."_

_"Wow," she says, smirking. "You've really got this whole cynical act down pat, haven't you?"_

_He shrugs. "What can I say? Everybody's a cynic."_

_They continue talking until much later into the night, when Nico can't help but yawn._

_"You have a really big mouth, you know that?"_

_"Shut up. I'm tired."_

_"Okay."_

_There's a long silence, and then, "Silena?"_

_"Yeah?"_

_"Will you be my big sister? I'm not trying to, you know, replace Bianca, or—" he gulps in a huge breath of air, fighting back sobs that threaten to escape. "Forget her, but… I want a sister."_

_He sounds pathetic, he knows, but he doesn't care at this point. It's been an awful day (or actually, yesterday, considering it's after midnight). He finds out his sister's dead, saves the guy he secretly has a crush on from evil skeletons, and… yeah._

_He can't see her face in the dim candlelight, but he's pretty sure she's smiling when she replies, "I would love you be your sister, Nico."_

_As he gives in to sleep, there are two thoughts that run through his mind:_

_1) __Man, my feet are cold._

_2) __She's not my sister by blood, but she might as well be._

~FROST~

"Nico?" there's a voice in his ear. "Nico?"

"Uh… what?" he flails around for a little bit at the abrupt exit from his thoughts.

The voice sounds again. "It's Piper. Piper McLean. You know, daughter of Aphrodite, one of the Seven, charmspeaker."

"What? Oh, yeah. Uh, where do you want to talk?"

McLean sends a concerned glance towards Percy and Grace, as if worried about what they might think. "Why don't we just go sit up near Festus. Leo's sleeping—he stayed up last night again."

Nico shrugs. He doesn't care.

Following the daughter of Aphrodite over coils of rope, up stairs, and around crates of… whatever they packed, Nico wonders why he's even tolerating this girl he barely knows. Just because of Silena, he tells himself. Not because he needs an older sister or someone to talk to or someone who won't judge him. It isn't because he wants someone other than Hazel and Percy to accept him, someone who isn't obliged to take him for who he is and not look at him differently. (He was Hazel's brother, and his sister had died because of Percy. They can't turn him away.)

McLean is waiting for him at the masthead, right next to Festus. She has a very strange look in her eyes. "I know."

There are only a few secrets that McLean can possibly know. Nico's mind whirls, picking them out. Just to confirm his suspicions, he asks, a wonderfully bewildered look on his fourteen-year-old face, "Know what?"

"About Percy."

His mask drops. "That's it. I'm killing your boyfriend."

"Wait wait wait wait! Jason didn't tell me! I can just… feel it."

"Feel what?" Nico asks her, irritated but no longer wanting to rip off Grace's head.

She gives him a disbelieving look. "I'm a daughter of Aphrodite. More so, I'm a daughter of Aphrodite not totally obsessed with looks and trapped in a ship with only seven other demigods and a satyr. Did you really expect me not to notice?"

"Honestly?" he asks. "I didn't. Most of the Aphrodite kids I know are giggly bimbos, and the Venus kids aren't exactly… good with love. Also, you have a boyfriend. I find that people in relationships are often oblivious to their surroundings and what's going on around them."

There's a pause. Then, McLean suspiciously says, "Most of the Aphrodite kids? Since you made the same assumption about me, I must take that to mean that you know at least one other Aphrodite kid who you don't think is a total idiot."

His face is guarded, masked with indifference. "Knew. Past tense."

Her face looks pitying almost immediately. He wants to separate her head from her shoulders. Pity? You're not supposed to pity a child of Hades! They're the bad guys, the monsters in the closet, the dirty secret everyone wants to hide.

"I'm sorry," she says. "I didn't know."

He sneers at her. "I hope you don't expect me to say that it's alright, because it isn't."

And with that, he turns on his heel, fleeing from the girl who had hit too close for comfort.

~FROST~

"Percy? Annabeth? Can I ask you something?"

Annabeth looks surprised, then smiles at Piper. "That depends what it is."

"Before me, was there ever an Aphrodite camper who might have…"

"Not been a total bitch?" asks Percy helpfully.

"Been a decent human being?" suggests his girlfriend.

Piper nods. "Yeah, along those lines."

Percy shifts uncomfortably. "Well, there was this one girl…"

"What happened to her?"

Annabeth and Percy share a long, fathomless look, and both of them turn to Piper at once. "She died as a hero." Says Percy flatly.

"It was a brave and honorable death," adds Annabeth.

"And whatever mistakes she may have made over the course of her life were forgiven, no matter what they were."

"Because, when it comes down to it, she was a good person just trying to protect those she cared about."

Only later, after they walk away, would Piper realize that they never gave her a name.

~FROST~

There's a knock at his door.

"Who is it?" he asks, not getting up from his sprawled position on the bed.

A muffled voice shouts, "It's Piper!"

"Go away!" he shouts back, a bit childishly.

"No!"

"Yes! Leave me alone!"

"Let me in!"

He finds himself standing up, opening the door—until he realizes what he's doing and slams the door in her face.

"Let me in, Nico!"

He tries to resist, he really does, but in the end her charmspeak wills him to open the door and let her in.

"Thank you."

"You're not welcome." He grouses, crossing his arms.

"What was her name?"

He doesn't answer. She sits and stares at him for a very long time.

Sometime after she comes in, a worried-looking boyfriend peeks his head in, as if to check that the son of Hades hasn't eaten McLean or something.

He retreats, looking even more worried, having seen his girlfriend staring steadfastly at Nico, as if he would tell her the secret of the universe if she did.

"Get out of my room." Nico finally says.

"No."

"Get out."

"No."

"Will you leave me alone if I tell you her name?"

"Yes."

And then he stands up, giving her an unfathomable look before whispering, "Her name was Silena."

She allows herself to be pushed out of the room without a single protest.

~FROST~

Silena. Silena.

Sih-lee-nah.

Siiiii-leeeeeee-naaaaa.

Silena.

It is admittedly a very pretty name. Piper likes it.

~FROST~

Silena.

Nico slides down onto his bed, feeling strangely exhausted, as if saying her name had sapped all of his energy.

Lethargy, he decides. That's what this is.

Why, he wonders, do the Fates hate him this much?

Fated to love Percy, lose Bianca, be trapped in Tartarus—was this the Fate's twisted idea of entertainment?

He must be the universe's spittoon. There is no other explanation for his life.

Screw you, universe.

~FROST~

Piper wants to find out more about this mysterious Silena. It is for this reason that she bugs Percy and Annabeth incessantly, to the point of cornering Annabeth in the restroom and trying to charmspeak Percy. (She feels guilty about the last one, but she wants—no, she needs—to find out about Sih-lee-nah.

"How did she die?"

"How old was she?"

"Why doesn't anyone ever talk about her?"

"How come the rest of my cabin didn't tell me about Silena?"

"Did she have a boyfriend?"

"Was she friends with you? Percy? Nico?"

Finally, they break.

Let no one say persistence does nothing.

~FROST~

Something's going on. He knows it.

McLean hasn't bothered him in a few days, instead spending her time stalking Percy and Chase. McLean's boyfriend looks frazzled and irritated, but says nothing, only staring in a rather bewildered way after her.

He's suspicious.

Something's going on. He knows it.

~FROST~

It's Annabeth who finally gives.

"Alright! You want to know? She was a spy for Kronos, but only because Luke said that he'd spare Charlie Beckendorf and one other unknown person if she spied for him! She died from a drakon, leading the Ares cabin into war in Clarisse's armor, and she was given a hero's funeral. All she wanted was her loved ones to be safe! Because…" and here Annabeth grows quiet, "because Silena was the daughter of Love, and all she ever wanted was for her love to survive."

~FROST~

The words pound in her head, days later, as she lies awake in her bed, unable to sleep properly, each time waking in a cold sweat.

Daughter of Love...

Want…

Love…

Survive…

And with those words beating a mantra into her head, engraving it into her very soul, Piper McLean falls asleep.

In a way, Piper was the strongest demigod of the Seven.

Love is the greatest, most primitive, most _powerful_ force of all.

It has toppled civilizations, caused wars, ended them, created peace, and built civilizations.

It has caused heartbreak, jealousy, joy, and satisfaction.

It has been, and always will be, the root of human nature. To love. To be loved.

Because in the end, Love conquers all.

* * *

**Like? Love? Hate? Review, please!**

**Frost, out.**


End file.
